


Lightbulbs and fuses

by Scharcoal



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: i pretend it's about tea, it really isnt, really everyone but Martin is just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22601761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scharcoal/pseuds/Scharcoal
Summary: Martin really just wanted a nice cup of tea before going back to work, but some days you just have to get lost in your own thoughts.Not like anyone else would be willing to listen.
Kudos: 7





	Lightbulbs and fuses

The second lightbulb to the left kept flickering every now and then, which really should have been annoying but after about three weeks since it first started it just became another part of the routine.  
Martin had expected the bulb to just stop working alltogether ages ago, had even mentioned it to Sasha during one of their shared lunch breaks even.  
That must have been at least two years ago now, possibly even longer.   
He was mostly sure it had been Sasha, the real one, before Prentiss.   
Someone should see about getting it exchanged, they agreed and that had been it.  
No one did and so the audible sizzle it gave off whenever it started flickering was just another source of noise that all of them ignored.  
Really the least of their worries nowadays.  
And Martin had to admit that it was nice having something familiar in a place that had canged so drastically in such a short time, even if it was just a not-really-broken bulb. 

The water in the kettle began boiling, hissing slightly before the kettle turned off with a short click which stopped the flickering of the light at the same time.  
Maybe someone had changed the bulb but the real issue was with the fuse and no matter how many times they fixed the bulb it would not change anything at all.  
They had tried fixing things in the wrong places a lot around this place.  
He was not thinking about the lightbulbs anymore, not really.   
Not that he could change either of it, no matter how much he thought about it.

With a sigh Martin pushed off the table he had been leaning against and went about preparing his tea.  
He had gotten out the mugs before he even got the water to boil, just as much of a routine as anything else.  
And he did have quite a lot of routine in making tea for his colleagues.  
Did he mind being the tea guy? Not at all, not even if he actually thought about it.  
It kind of just happened, even if he had never intended to be something at all.  
Tea calmed him and frankly, he honestly liked sharing it.   
Start to finish, the entire process from brewing a good cup of tea, to drinking it, the warm feeling that usually followed and feeling slightly more prepared for whatever else he had to face.  
It just felt appropriate to ask his coworkers if they wanted a cup as well.  
Not much additional effort to pouring another one anyways.  
After a while he knew how each of them prefered their tea and in a way it made him feel useful.  
He liked that as well.  
Maybe he liked it more than the tea itself.  
But he doubted that any of them ever knew how he liked hiw own tea.  
Not that it mattered. Not in the big picture, he guessed.  
Once someone asked him if it was not a bit much, keeping track of everyones' preferences and preparing all of it accordingly.  
If he remembered correctly that had been Tim - right before taking his own cup, seven minutes with the tiniest amount of milk, and making a comment about how he was too nice for his own good.

Both the amount and the kind of tea he was getting ready had kept changing quite a lot.  
People coming, people refusing his offer for tea, people no longer coming, more people dead than alive and calling anyone truly alive down in the archives seemed like a bad joke as well.  
The last time he actually tried to figure out how someone liked their tea had been with Peter Lukas.  
He barely saw the guy at first but things changed after the incident with the Flesh.  
Or maybe it was not the circumstances but they themselves who had changed.  
Lighbulb and fuses, or something similar at least.  
Making tea was familiar, was calming, comforting even and when it came down to it, really just part of his routine at work.  
The first day he worked for Peter, became his assistant, he went to get tea. And promptly offered to make a second cup.  
Considering how Peter sometimes talked a lot without really saying anything that mattered, it did not surprise Martin that it took a while to figure out how Peter actually enjoyed his tea.  
It might have been mostly on reflex when he first asked him if he wanted some as well, since he was putting on the kettle anyway, really not a bother at all, but people usually liked him a bit better for offering.  
While he did not particularil want Peter to like him, he assumed it could make his life considerably easier if he at least did not dislike him.  
He also never outright asked the man how he wanted his tea.  
Not even when he poured away half full cups after each new attempt.  
If he was honest he fumbled throught it even more than usual, a bit afraid of what he had gotten himself into this time on top of some part of him always being a bit anxious to just ask people these things.  
A silly thing, he had to admit.  
Martin had been frustrated when he tried yet another variation and Peter barely had taken a sip before leaving him alone to work on some sort of request to renew a contract for some intern to finish their paper. Something told him that might not be something an assistant should be doing, but there was little point in bringing that up.  
The reminder that not everyone in the Magnus Institute seemed to be involved in this weird attempt at either stopping or bringing about the end of the world as they knew it stung a bit more than a full cup of tea being left behind did.

The cup that finally won involved a great amount of childish defiance and an evening of looking up what weird combinations people seemed to actually like.  
Even now he felt a bit silly dripping in cream from the sides after pouring tea over rock candy of all things.  
It felt a bit too much for his own tastes but Martin did not judge people for their choice in tea.  
Though it did amaze him when Peter had set down the empty cup, patted him on the shoulder just once and thanked him for the tea but unfortenately he had business to attend to.  
Obviously Peter Lukas was convinced Martin would do a great job just on his own, without his supervision.  
After that he started bringing a cup for Peter whenever he actually stuck around for more than a few minutes.  
Oddly enough it brought back a part of how things used to be, before everything in the archives had gone downhill, even if working for the avatar of the Lonely was not much of an improvement in that particular regard.

It did not take a lot to figure out that his new boss prefered his privacy and worked best when left alone.   
While Peter had been around far less than one would expect from someone who was supposed to run the institute, he stuck around enough to make sure Martin understood what his new position would be.  
As soon as he was confident enough that Martin had things under control Peter started vanishing for longer periods of time more often.  
He always got done the important things Martin needed him to actually do on his own, though.  
And from what he had gathered Peter spent exponentially more time around him than anyone else, which really just meant that just about everyone else never had caught a glimpse of the man.  
That did not surprise him as well. If anything it sounded about right for someone affiliated with the Lonely, someone explicitly asking him to limit his interactions to just about none, would seem more phantom than actual person.  
He forgot when he had started to prepare tea for Peter when he knew he was around somewhere in the institute and then just leave it in the kitchen for the man to pick it up himself.  
Martin vaguely rememberd an offhand comment about something that gave him the idea that Peter might appreciate it but did not want to think about why that mattered to him.  
And for how loud of a personality Peter exhibited every now and then he also was remarkably hard to remember in detail, so what was one more thing he just accepted without questioning it.  
But whatever had brought it on, Martin switched from brining Peter tea to getting himself a cup and just leaving a second cup behind that Peter usually came in with a few minutes later.  
Most days he even got a 'thank you, Martin, that's very considerate of you' or a similar statement.  
That kind of routine made his daily work far more nice and calmer than it had been in months.  
It also made Peter Lukas quite a bit more likeable and human than he had any right to be.  
Peter quickly became the only one Martin still made tea for next to himself, even if their version of having a cup of tea meant silently existing in the same room, or talking about work at most.  
Or, as Martin recalled with a frustrated sigh, pausing his third attempt at explaining the function of a rather simple Excel sheet to Peter with a 'I need tea for this' only to come back to an empty room and Peter strolling in with a big smile, tea in hand – a few minutes after Martin had already fixed the data on his own.  
It started to feel as mundane as it had been to ask if Jon wanted some tea and to make sure he did not let Melanie's cup get too strong.  
It was something familiar within a situation he could only hope to navigate correctly but it also made him miss how things used to be a bit less, which should have worried him more than it did.

Another thing he had learned about Peter during the months working as his assistant was that he really did not know him at all.  
Whenever he thought he had something figured out and understood a part of how his boss acted, Peter changed it.  
Just when he had gotten used to the weird routine of leaving tea in the kitchen for Peter to collect in his own time, he stopped physically showing up.  
Peter had gotten his tea and not come to talk to Martin as far as he could gather.  
Even if he only was sure of it because he always found the empty mug a while later.  
He had not expected to miss that part of his new job as much as he found he did.  
What he really had not seen coming was what followed shortly after.  
Really took him by surprise when he realised what exactly that nagging feeling slinging round his shoulders was.

After about a week of thinking he was alright with the new tea arrangement Martin found the first ever cup cold and untouched, sitting in the exact same spot he had left it about seventy-three minutes earlier, when he went to get himself another cup.  
Which, of course, would have been fine – Peter probably just was not actually around and Martin had just falsely assumed he had come in – if Peter Lukas had not appeared only minutes later and made it a point to let him know he had been around all morning but now really needed Martin to look over that report he had mentioned last week and if maybe he could be a dear and cancel that appointment one of the research staff had asked for.  
People had forgotten about the tea he had brought them before, of course.  
Jon had done so more often than actually drinking a nice warm and freshly bewed cup of tea.  
The entire thing made him remember the times he had caught Jon reheating his tea in the microwave.  
That on the other hand reminded him that he had not visited Jon in the hospital for a month, maybe even longer.  
His concept of time seemed a bit off lately with most his time spent at work, rarely leaving on time and with little to no time left to himself.  
Martin prefered not to think about any of it right now.   
Things were hard enough without being reminded about the various instances he really fucked up.  
And apparently he may as well count 'being the tea guy' as another failed thing.

What really got him, though, was that it kept happening and each time he was more sure that all of it was very much on purpose up until the point at which he could scarcely remember the last time Peter drank his tea, much less the last time they had tea in the same room.  
Martin had not realised how lonely finding the cold cup made him feel until it already was familiar enough to not even feel off anymore.  
This week he had seen Peter about twice for a few minutes at a time and had poured away more cold tea than he cared to count and each cup made him carry a bit more weight on his shoulders.

The lightbulb started sizzling again for just a moment, the flickering tearing Martin out of his thoughts.  
He still stood in front of the kettle, his tea already cold and probably much too strong and bitter.  
Another sigh left him as he poured yet one more cup down the drain, the only difference being that for once it was not someone else's tea.  
Lately he found himself lost in his own mind more often but he had never forgotten himself as much as in those moments.  
As soon as he put on the kettle once more, determined to get his cup of well deserved tea, the lightbulb started flickering in its usual way.  
He ought to suggest that Peter made someone check the fuse. It should be something he cared about.  
The kettle clicked off moments later and Martin set out to a second attempt at a cup of tea.  
He was just about to pour a second cup for Peter when the bulb gave a short clicking sound and he halted for a few moments, just listening to the electric buzzing before sighing yet again and putting the kettle down and setting the second cup away.  
Maybe it was time to have Peter make his own tea, if he really wanted some.  
He waited a few more minutes for his own tea to be done before taking a sip and shaking his head at nothing in particular.

He should get back to work and try to finish early enough so he could head to the store.  
Martin really needed some new tea.  
This one was starting to feel a bit stale, a bit too much of a reminder that he kept offering people tea just to drink it on his own.

He would not notice until the next day when he came in an hour after starting his day to get the same tea he got every day, never actually bringing a different one, but only moments after he left the second lightbulb to the left gave a last round of static sizzles before finally burning out with a snap.  
In retrospect he found it rather fitting that noone bothered to change it even then.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted anything I've written in so many years but here we are.  
> Feel free to notice any mistakes and then nod and continue on (if it really matter that much, feel free to tell me. I didn't get anyone to proofread this.)  
> Threw myself into this podcast and am in so, so deep.  
> This started with a dumb joke about how Peter might like his tea and then it got away from me.


End file.
